Books and Looks
by Wordgawk
Summary: Cullen is no longer a bored Templar stuck in a corner at the Circle Tower when a new mage catches his eye.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: Story takes place essentially at the start of DA:O, so no massive spoilers here. **

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><p><span>Books and Looks<span>

On the fifth day of every third month the Circle Tower had a wave of noise. New apprentices streamed through the massive gate of the entrance and noise always followed. Tapping feet, excited chatters, awed voices; the outcome became a tri-monthly ritual for Cullen. The men and women of varying ages would comment and he carried out his role and ushered them to order when needed.

Such as rituals go, the templar Cullen restrained from straying away from his duties as watchful guard. Order required constant vigilance and he wasn't about to stop his watchful gaze for any suspicious activity from these magic-wielders.

Order meant a lot of looking and even more standing. On his crankier days, his armor felt so heavy on his shoulders, pressing down on him like an invisible force. Thank the Maker he had permission to bypass wearing the suffocating helm indoors. Seniority had its benefits.

Sometimes, he envied the mages. With their light and flowing robes, armor was a laughable necessity.

It took a solid two weeks for the fresh apprentices to fully accustom themselves to the where's and how's of the tower. Cullen took his space in one of the corners of the largest library on the second floor. There were multiple libraries and this one he favored most. Airy, well-lit, and not too crowded unless heavy research called for it.

Cullen swept his eyes across the perimeter of the expansive library. Today was another good day. Some readers at a far table and a set of astute talkers closer. Cullen considered shushing them at one point, but this morning had been so deathly silent that hearing voices was almost a reprieve.

He shifted his weight and stuck his head out the corridor. Wiplug was supposed to relieve him. Nowhere in sight yet. Nothing remarkable about that; tardiness was the man's middle name.

Cullen sighed and turned to go back to his respective corner. An eye level of hardback spines met the front of his face right before they rammed into him.

The carrier of the volumes yelped and teetered. He instinctively made a grab for what he could, be it person or item. All he caught was the thickest book out of the bunch. Everything else crashed to the floor, including the mage who landed hard on her rump. Cullen winced when an edge of a book smacked her face.

"Ow! When did education have to hurt?" The grumble was testy and the woman who spoke rubbed her cheek and forehead. She seemed like an older recruit and not the usual bubbly-faced youngsters which permeated the crowds at every inauguration. Perhaps around 20, though when it came to women's ages Cullen had no knack.

"You shouldn't have carried so many books," Cullen automatically informed her. His mouth ran on auto-pilot when mages caused trouble. It was his duty.

The mage scowled at him, but he wasn't deterred. He was right.

"Thanks for the advice." She picked herself off the floor from her sprawled position. Frustratingly pushing aside her dark hair off her face, she resumed to gather up the books in her lap.

Standing right in front of her, Cullen spied the starting of a small bruise at the side of her forehead. Judging by the navy robes new apprentices donned, she was one.

Perhaps he needed a break from boredom. Before he could prevent himself he bent to retrieve a book that nearly cleared the open archway he stood beside, and then another nearby. He straightened, which wasn't the easiest thing to do wearing hefty armor and carrying an armful of literature. "All you all right?"

"No. I didn't want to be right in how stodgy I expected you to be." Disappointment clearly registered on her face.

Cullen couldn't help wondering what she expected from him when they hadn't met before. "I'm not."

Continuing to pile books, she looked ready to heft them up and reenact another disastrous trip.

"You're carrying that many again?" Cullen couldn't understand why.

"Stodgy," the lady reminded him. Her arms strained with weight. She gestured with her chin for him to place his tomes on top.

"Practical." Cullen wasn't about to watch her drop these volumes again. The bindings were fragile enough as is. The next fall could snap them clean from the cover for all he knew. First Enchanter Irving would certainly have something severe to say about destruction of property. "You'll just drop them. Make two trips."

"No, I want to make one." She sounded adamant about it.

So could he. "Two. Whomever you're bringing those to wouldn't appreciate loose pages, would they?"

The mage's expression was almost obscured by the height of the topmost book lining up with her nose. Cullen couldn't see much else other than her eyes. Ready to argue further, Cullen sensed, but when she groaned and balanced the stack against her body, she gave in. "Fine." The tomes muffled her admission. "Make sure nobody else signs these out, ok...?" she trailed off, grasping for his name.

"Cullen," he supplied.

"Right." Her hands tightened around the precarious tower and she steadily walked out. "Guard those titles with your life, Cullen." The hint of teasing floated past the doorway, surprising him. His name skimmed her mouth sooner than he anticipated and all Cullen could do was blink. Hearing a mage call a templar by name was noteworthy enough to be entered in a codex.

Silence reigned in the library again. Alone with his thoughts, Cullen just realized he hadn't gotten her name.

He felt a grin tug at the corner of his mouth. Well, she was coming back soon.

Then it dawned. He wasn't. His shift was over. As if to add to the disappointing revelation, in the distance Wiplug approached, actually on time today. The one instance he couldn't be tardy and it had to be now?

"Sir." Wiplug nodded in curt greeting. "Can you believe it, but I'm on time. All day to everywhere. I must be flying."

Cullen couldn't make up an excuse to stay on the premise. Templars didn't make excuses for mages. "Yes. Good for you." He regretted the sliver of bitterness that pricked him. "There's someone who is coming back for these books." He set them on the floor. "Do see to it they acquire them."

"One of the instructors? Who is it? Not the crony Hutley with the regulating mana fetish?" Wiplug joked with a snort. Rumor spread about Templar Hutley and his recent love for mana preservation which templars supposedly received hidden benefits from. He continually stalked the bookshelves like a phantom.

Cullen found it hard to swallow then. "I-it's a mage." The templar assisting, not watching.

"Mage?" Wiplug's tone hardened instantly around the word, all joviality gone. "Yes, of course."

They exchanged positions and Cullen resisted lingering. He left.

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><p><strong>Author's note: Stay tuned for chapter 2!<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"You're back." Cullen didn't know why he expressed it so fast when she came in. The way he blurted it so expectantly, he silently chided himself for acting so eager. It was the next day and he was manning his post in the same spot in the same schedule. The mage had stepped into the library once again. She was rubbing her arm as she did and upon hearing him speak, her brunette head spun to catch his greeting.

Boredom had a hold on him. Of course that was it.

"Hi." She spoke this with surprise, as if she didn't expect to see him.

Cullen couldn't fault her since her arrival had been so recent. She would learn soon enough how the monotony of daily studies panned out as the months went by.

Her lopsided smile followed a shoulder lift. "I'm here for another set of books."

"I'm shocked you think of such a thing when you enter a library."

"I am a deviant, aren't I?" She airily chuckled, then aimed herself to one of the shelves at the side. "Is this the section on water arcane techniques?"

He wished the Maker he knew. Cullen could only shrug.

The mage seemed frazzled and she darted from bookcase to bookcase. Cullen heard faint mumbling about alphabetical atrociousness. She disappeared behind a stack, leaving Cullen to observe the others in the room.

And wait. Actually _anticipate_ while standing around for something intriguing to come his way instead of hoping for the utter excitement of someone reading to accidentally drop a tome and -Maker forbid- shake the stony silent air with vibrations.

Cullen made sure he saw her coming towards him this morning as another tower of hardcover novels was clutched to her chest. The pile went up to said area and he could see her face. The small, but obvious bruise on her forehead had turned a nasty purple. Odd how she didn't resort to using magic to whisk it away. A spell to do such a thing couldn't be too complicated.

"Did you get your remaining reads yesterday?" He assumed she did, but it never hurt to verify.

A quirky grin passed her mouth. "Yes. You know, when I came to get them I..." A crease settled between her brows.

When she led her sentence astray, Cullen felt compelled to prompt, perhaps a tad too eagerly, "Yes?"

She grunted and Cullen saw her arms strain with effort. "I should go. I don't want to be chastised by Enchanter Pwiny again. He wants me to get all these teaching aids every class this week. I bring them here when class is done, too. My poor muscles."

If she underwent templar training, she'd understand the true meaning of arm pain. Exercises day in and out filled with sword handling and techniques, not to forget effectively balancing a shield.

But she wasn't a templar. She wielded not a cutting blade, but a wand of less proportionate size. Not that size diminished strength. The deadliness of a raging spell had as much destructive potential as any broadsword, if not more.

He paused. She wasn't a templar, yet she worked herself like one, hefting heavy books when a spell could substitute. Minor magic use wasn't forbidden. Perhaps she hadn't discovered this fact. "A lifting spell is not prohibited." Cullen advised her as any informative templar could.

The mage peered at him with a slightly patronizing expression. One that conveyed she already knew. "Thank you. I do have my reasons for the physical work, though."

"Enchanter Pwiny isn't the sadist type." The observation tumbled out of Cullen's mouth before he knew what exactly he said aloud.

The woman burst out giggling and Cullen immediately felt heat flash up his neck. "No, no, Pwiny is nothing like that. He's not forcing me to do labor work."

Voluntarily taking on weighty loads for what reason? "_You're_ not a masochist, are you?"

"Hardly. I favor the... hedonist ways."

Cullen tried to digest what she meant and whether the impish smile she shot him truly was a flirtation or a figment of his imagination when she made an impatient noise. "The halls are a puzzle. It took me almost ten minutes to return to class yesterday. I _really_ must go." The mage braced her texts against herself and shuffled out the doorway. "It was nice seeing you, Cullen."

Like that, she disappeared.

And like that, her name repeatedly eluded Cullen.

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><p><strong>Author's note: One more chapter to go!<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

True to her word -and to Cullen's delight- his mystery mage entered the library come the following day. Pain radiated from her as she clutched both her arms. Nonetheless, she said the first hello today and gave him a friendly smile. Joy uplifted his mood and he barely prevented himself from following her to talk. Off she went to the shelves.

Cullen planned on abating his perennial curiosity about a number of issues, the foremost being her name. He was going to drive himself mad if he couldn't at least find out her name so he didn't need to refer to her as "that girl" or "the new mage".

Curiosity and pity flooded him when she returned with her volumes and he saw her wincing the whole path until she reached him. What was so important for her to strain her body when a simple spell could fix her problem? This issue jumped to the forefront of his priorities retaining her. "You made it to class in less than ten minutes, I hope?" was all he gathered in terms of courage instead of saying what was really on his mind.

The twitching mage nodded. "A couple minutes less. I'm getting better. Bye." She began moving.

He shouldn't have done it. It betrayed the guarding templar standards of being as invisible as a vase stuck in the corner. Cullen stepped in the entrance, blocking her from exiting.

Her eyebrows shot up in shock. "Excuse me, Cullen, but I do have class."

"I understand. But..." Cullen intentionally pressed his gloved hand against the outside of her arm. It jerked, causing a downward slide of her books. He snatched them before they hit the ground.

"What are you doing?" She stared in confusion at him.

"Let me carry them for you. You seem ready to drop them."

"Again with the dropping thing. I'm fi- ah!" She rose quickly and hissed when she made a fast grab for her books, moving her arms too hastily.

Before she had the chance to protest, Cullen swept the hardbacks into his possession. "I am protecting these tomes with my life, you see. I suggest you allow me to do my job." He sounded authoritative, right? His insides quivered like those jelly desserts the templars were wanton to devour after dinners.

A quirky grin broke out on the mage's face. "Seems like this experiment is over."

She angled her shoulders away from Cullen but didn't protest further when her books stayed heaped in his arms. Cullen took that as a good sign. And when she began walking, he stepped alongside her with airy, albeit armored greaves. "Experiment? An assignment for a class?"

"No. For me." She continued to smile and Cullen's knees gelled into wobbly jelly with his stomach when she shone the genial expression at him for a second. "Templars probably feel envious of mages using floating to easily carry books instead of muscles as you do, right?"

Cullen processed the thought. He couldn't ascertain if "envious" was the right word, but he did get pangs of wishing when he saw the ease the mages had when carrying a load with only a flick of a magicked hand or a chant.

"So," the tester continued, "I wanted to experience the trials of a templar."

"By carrying tomes?"

"By carrying tomes."

Now it was Cullen's turn for a wry smirk. "Toting hardbacks is not exactly a full representation of templar training."

Making a face and rubbing at her bicep, the mage sighed. "It feels that way when you never carry so much weight multiple trips a day. That ought to count for creativity points. Endurance. Oh, and strength."

"Fair enough." This woman's sense of humor was starting to intrigue Cullen, especially since he sensed no wariness coming from her as he did with many other mages. The tenuous dichotomy between templars and mages naturally strained interactions and Cullen always expected this when interacting with them.

"Taking up my classmates' offers of magic to lighten my load was all too tempting. They saw me from the beginning of this term and considered me strange, but I wished to persevere. I didn't use regenerative spells for my arms. They would have defeated the purpose."

Week three of the new term was almost on them. Her experiment would have headed to the one month mark. Cullen shifted his arms to balance back the tall stack leaning east to the middle of his chest. "H-how long were you going to keep up not using magic to move books?"

A huge zing ripped through Cullen when she threw him a flighty look. "Until you talked to me."

Implications and wild musings bounced around Cullen's brain. He nearly dumped his baggage onto the carpeted hallway in his delirium.

Nothing happened, though, because the books grew weightless. They took residence under his chin but the gravity disappeared. It took him a moment to realize they were suspended in mid-air. Cullen's staccato heartbeat caused what he hoped was not a totally goofy grin to appear.

The sneaky spellcaster pointed at the left corridor at the junction up ahead. "That's how a mage carries things. You understand my take on 'templar training', yes?"

The awkward sensation of complete airborne objects in his grasp felt surreal. No gravity was akin to a dream in his personal dictionary. Not possible for him to do, but possible to do in this world. "I apologize for what I just said about how you perceived training. You _are_ a templar."

So focused on the happenings of these hefty books having no mass despite seeing how ungodly thick one of them was, Cullen didn't know he made a joke until he heard laughter.

"Now you're a mage. Astonishing?"

Cullen attempted the unfathomable; he used only one finger to balance the literature. Pages and pages of knowledge he constantly heard slam and thud and plopped onto tables and shelves, reduced to the lightness of a quill. He could not stop gawking. "I-I'm sorry for acting such as this," he stuttered when he caught her eyes in his line of sight. "The occurrence truly is remarkable when experienced first-hand."

She stopped walking and Cullen saw her vision centered on one of the closed paneled doors. They were here. Disappointment came, naturally.

Her lovely words lowered to a whisper. "Care to revel in it again?"

"Sorry?" Cullen was nonplussed at his unexpected development. His mind was as blank as an unperturbed field, save for a lone and useless cow.

"Talking. Shall we speak again?" She sounded as if she were explaining a concept to him.

Cullen got the basics, but not the full explanation yet. "Right. Yes, that is fine." He passed the floating books to her.

The mage mimicked Cullen's practice of balancing everything on her finger, but instead twirled her finger and watched them spin. "I'll show you this trick sometime. Thanks for your help."

Cullen discreetly inclined his head in response and she opened the door. Once it closed, Cullen turned around and made his way to his quarters. He was pushing open the heavy oak when he remembered his quest for her name. He forgot to ask again.

No matter. There were going to be more opportunities.

- THE END -


End file.
